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Study: 61 UK firms tried a 4-day workweek and after a year, they still love it

jjcm
88 replies
23h52m

There's no doubt that there's a benefit to the employee, but for corporations to adopt this there has to be a measurable benefit to the company as well.

I do think there is one clear benefit as measured in the article - employee retention. It's an extremely strong incentive to stay with the current company, and domain knowledge gained over decades really is a competitive advantage if your employees commonly have it.

What remains to be seen though are if the efficiency gains are good enough to justify less hours. Are employees more productive? That's the question that remains to be answered or objectively measured here. Less burnout and better mental health means higher quality work for sure, but is output as a whole better with a 4 day work week versus a 5 day work week? That's what shareholders will care about more than anything else.

burningChrome
48 replies
22h34m

In the mid aughts, I worked at a company that put ROWE (results oriented work environment) into practice. This approach basically meant you could work whenever you wanted, as long as you were meeting goals and metrics. There was a list of metrics you had to meet before being eligible for it. They kept it in place for two years and nothing really changed. Devs were still meeting their metrics and the company was still doing well, but when the old VP who put ROWE in place left, the first thing the new VP did was take it away along with some other perks we had. Myself and about seven other devs left within the next 3-4 months.

I'm currently working for a large corporation who went through several cycles of trying to get people to come back to the office after C19 slowed down. After three or four versions, they finally gave up and put an optional (hybrid) model in place. It was interesting to hear the stunned VP's glowing about the increased productivity and the company had two of its most successful quarters going into and coming out of the pandemic. I'm guess seeing those results made it easier for them to allow people to work from home more easily.

Some anecdotal evidence for your retention theory. Since my current company allowed 100% WFH, our team has had barely any turn over and at least three of the teams I worked with have also have little or no turn over as well. It would stand to reason you probably have a good point about retaining people when you allow them a little more freedom to do their jobs.

sandworm101
38 replies
22h5m

I'm with a large organization (government, military) that also implemented a hybrid model under covid and decided to keep it going. But not a day goes by that someone doesn't scream for it to end. We have too many people "working from home" all the time and never getting done the stuff that cannot be done from home. Is the server not responding after the recent power outage? Too bad. The guy to turn it back on only comes in Monday-Tuesday. They put the real property maintenance people on a hybrid model. No joke: The plumbers and electricians still "work from home" half the week.

"Hello, this is General Smith." "Sir, ... um .. you are answering your own phone?" "Yup. My EA is working from home thursday-friday and we cannot get the secure phone to forward calls to her cellphone." "Did you talk to IT?" "It is friday. IT works remote on fridays." "How about I come to your office?" "Please do, I'm all alone here."

belval
23 replies
21h11m

That sounds mostly dysfunctional and not really a WFH issue.

Is the server not responding after the recent power outage? Too bad. The guy to turn it back on only comes in Monday-Tuesday.

A reasonable company would have some rotating in-office IT or at the very least an oncall that goes to wherever the server is to fix it.

The plumbers and electricians still "work from home" half the week.

Pretty much the same thing.

As someone who is a big proponent of WFH, one thing I must still agree to is that organizational and cultural issues that existed prior to WFH at usually just worse in WFH. If your employees are so disfranchised that their install scripts to wiggle their mouse while they watch Netflix the battle is already lost.

FirmwareBurner
15 replies
19h52m

> If your employees are so disfranchised that their install scripts to wiggle their mouse while they watch Netflix the battle is already lost.

That would be a lot of companies and workers out there, dare I say the vast majority even.

Believe it or not, many workers don't actually enjoy their work, their company, their boss or their job, but they put up with it because housing in expensive and it was the least horrible job they could find with the highest pay they could land, enabling them a lifestyle upgrade, even if they don't care for the work itself, so of course they'll take every opportunity they get to slack off and watch Netflix if they can.

Expecting all your workers to be fully invested and committed on work while on the clock is an exercise in futility and something no company past a certain size will ever accomplish because everyone just looks after themselves and their own self interest first, screw the company and their shareholders. And the companies know this, hence the culture of micromanagement, spyware, RTO, etc.

That's why start-ups and small companies can accomplish things the likes of Google can't, because they're formed mostly of motivated people who care about the product and the mission first and foremost, while the likes of Google are full of coasters who are there just to make as much money as possible with as little work as possible while the gravy train lasts.

ghaff
5 replies
18h21m

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with people looking after themselves. A lot of of the people committed to a mission are going to end up getting screwed. (Not everyone, but probably most.)

spacemark
3 replies
15h28m

Screwed in a monetary sense, perhaps. But this is just one thing people gain from work. For some it's not even that important.

sincerely
1 replies
14h52m

Ok, so just consider a world where jobs paid no money. How many people do you think would have a job? 10% of the amount now? 1%?

Even if there are some very rare individuals that go to work primarily for companionship or for personal fulfillment that doesn't mean it's even worth bringing up in a discussion like this

strken
0 replies
14h36m

This is a bit of a misdirection because it equates jobs, which are work done for someone else, with all work. I am sure that the majority of people would still do something that can be considered work in a world without jobs.

It's obvious that few people are going to subordinate themselves in a world where they don't get paid for doing so, and if they did it would look more like volunteer associations (only emergency response involves much hierarchy, most volunteers are only loosely associated with the org, individuals choose which shifts to turn up to, local leaders are elected and view it as a burden rather than a privilege) and less like work (you don't get to choose anything).

Edit: I should add that I'm in no way against jobs, I just think that people who are doing largely unproductive work for free are still working, even though it'd be better for everyone if they were getting paid to do something more useful.

giantg2
0 replies
14h17m

If money is not that important, then it must have been important to them at some point for them to have obtained and retained it.

giantg2
0 replies
14h16m

I agree. I started out mission driven, now I'm a coaster after getting screwed.

RHSeeger
5 replies
11h39m

Believe it or not, many workers don't actually enjoy their work, their company, their boss or their job

There are a lot of people that don't enjoy their jobs, but do the work because they're getting paid to do it. You seem to assume that anyone doing their job _only_ because they're being paid to do it will _not_ do their job if they can get away with it (even though they're still being paid to do so). Not everyone is a horrible person. Plenty of people will continue to do their job even if they could lie and not do it; because they agreed "if you pay me, I will do my job".

I've had times where I wasn't enjoying my job, but I still did the work... because that's the agreement I had with the company I worked for. And, like a lot of people, I wouldn't see it as acceptable to scam the company I work for.

FirmwareBurner
2 replies
6h55m

>There are a lot of people that don't enjoy their jobs, but do the work because they're getting paid to do it.

How's that different from what I just said?

belval
1 replies
6h36m

they don't care for the work itself, so of course they'll take every opportunity they get to slack off and watch Netflix if they can.

Overall you do make it sound like you condone this, I got the same read as the person you are responding to...

FirmwareBurner
0 replies
6h19m

I don't condone it, I'm just saying it how it is in reality.

BriggyDwiggs42
1 replies
10h14m

Eh scamming companies is fine, especially as they get larger. Companies scam employees whenever they get the chance.

error_logic
0 replies
47m

Classic tragedy of the commons and hypercompetitive destructive incentives which hurt everyone in the end, sort of like this- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRz54V7rU4U

antihipocrat
1 replies
12h54m

For startups is it perhaps easier to be intrinsically motivated in the company's success because there is likely to be more financial benefits?

When large established companies complain about productivity and lack of employee commitment, the answer seems very obvious to me... Swap platitudes, certificates of recognition and motivational speeches with tangible financial incentives.

If the executive wants everyone to come into the office 5 days a week, then offer a 25%+ pay rise and watch people flood in

ornornor
0 replies
11h37m

because there is likely to be more financial benefits?

I don’t think this is true for the vast majority of startup employees though. Maybe the founders get some crazy return 10 years down the line if they’re lucky. Most everyone else would earn the same or less if there is a successful sale as they’d have at a “normal” company. And if there is no successful sale, they’d have earned less.

wiether
0 replies
8h48m

That would be a lot of companies and workers out there, dare I say the vast majority even.

Since I joined the workforce, I encountered something like two or three people doing actually nothing at work. And once they are identified, I just know that I can't expect any output from them and just do without them.

It's the opposite that I'm confronted with daily : people who are absolutely terrible at their job and who constantly try participate. Not only I know that I have to triple check their outputs, but I also have to come up with fake tasks to give them so that they are not constantly asking for things to do or worst, doing disasters on their own initiative. They consume a lot of time and energy from the productive members of the team, while having no positive output for the company. It's like daycare for adults. And given that everybody is paid at the end of the month, I have nothing but love for unproductive (in the eyes of the company) people who take care of themselves.

I'd rather have both those people doing what they enjoy outside of work instead of forcing themselves to be here because governments and corporations are saying that you are not a member of society if you are not selling your time to capitalism.

sandworm101
5 replies
21h1m

> A reasonable company would have some rotating in-office IT

Ya. We had that. We had 10+ people doing trouble tickets 8am to 4pm across more than a dozen buildings. They worked hard, but were never actually done. There was always a priority list. Now they work half the week from home. Stuff is piling up and we are begging for more non-at-home IT staff to be hired.

lolinder
4 replies
20h36m

I think you missed the point—your organization is completely dysfunctional at this point and hiring won't change that.

Based on your description you don't have a WFH policy, you have a policy that incentivizes not working at all. What makes you think that these hypothetical new hires are going to actually work while the rest of their department doesn't? What sane person would put up with that treatment?

FirmwareBurner
3 replies
19h58m

>I think you missed the point—your organization is completely dysfunctional at this point

Would you be surprised to hear that most companies in the world are just like that?

HN readers are in a bubble where they can afford to be picky on where they work choosing companies that fit in their belief system in terms of organizational efficiency and work culture, instead of just choosing the least horrible job they can find with the best pay, like the other 99% of the people in the world.

lolinder
2 replies
19h2m

I said nothing about the ratio of dysfunctional organizations to non-dysfunctional, nor did I encourage OP to switch jobs or even try to change something in the org. All I said is that their organization is dysfunctional and hiring new people into the dysfunctional teams will do absolutely nothing to fix that.

FirmwareBurner
1 replies
18h59m

>that doesn't make it not dysfunctional

I never said that's not dysfunctional, I said most companies ARE dysfunctional in one way or another, and it's something most workers who've been around the block a few times learn to live with eventually, since they prioritize hobbies, family and having a roof over their heads instand of finding that ideal Goldlacks company that's never dysfunctional in any way, because that doesn't really exist.

Especially traditional companies tend to be insanely dysfunctional when it comes to IT and SW engineering in general. And most people know this but still plenty choose to work there and put up with that dysfunctionality instead of fighting to change it, because like I said, it's just a job that pays the bills, not a personal identity, and a lot of the people in the real world aren't as fussy about this as HN is.

lolinder
0 replies
18h41m

most people know this but still plenty choose to work there and put up with that dysfunctionality instead of fighting to change it ... and a lot of the people in the real world aren't as fussy about this as HN is.

Again: I didn't suggest anyone fight to change anything or switch jobs. All I said is that hiring new people into the dysfunctional organization is going to do absolutely nothing to fix the problems OP is describing.

You're replying to what you imagine people on HN would often say, not replying to me.

giantg2
0 replies
14h19m

You speak a lot about "reasonable" things. The parent probably could have made things a little more clear, but concerning "government, military" work policies it's almost expected a high percentage will be unreasonable.

vidarh
6 replies
21h53m

My employer's IT is in a different country. I'm not sure which. If it matters, that's an organizational problem, not a WFH problem.

ben_w
5 replies
19h23m

At the rate things are currently changing, I won't be very surprised if non-trivial server capacity gets located in orbit thanks to some successor to Starlink.

This will make remote work mandatory, even if it still can't fix all the possible issues.

OJFord
3 replies
16h39m

Why would that make remote work any more mandatory than it is with 'the cloud' or data centres?

ben_w
1 replies
10h21m

Going to space to fix them is very hard.

(Only due to your comment did I realise I was ambiguous, I meant remote work specifically for the IT department would be mandatory, not everyone in general).

OJFord
0 replies
5h58m

It could still be office-based though, sure technically remote from the server, but so are the web servers software engineers develop for typically, sometimes even their development environment is. I don't think that really factors into remote (WFH) vs office working at all, at least from an employer's perspective. Maybe it makes it easier to work remotely, but certainly doesn't necessitate it: you can work from anywhere, and that can still be the office.

HowTheStoryEnds
0 replies
1h1m

Your worklocation is mir and it's you that goes remote, you don't go remoting. Just like a drill rig. ;)

vidarh
0 replies
8h37m

But only mandatory in the sense of distance to the equipment - it still won't stop some managers from wanting them all corraled into an office somewhere.

nilamo
5 replies
21h27m

Your IT should always be remote. A laptop in the office is not any different from a laptop out of the office.

It definitely feels like most people complaining about wfh have no friends and work is their entire life. I honestly do not understand how anyone can pretend they get anything done, while also being constantly interrupted or having conversations about what they're doing this weekend, or such and such sports team last night etc. Like... just get the work done and move on, jeez, it's work, not a social club. Ending wfh so you can force people to hang out with you is weird.

duckmysick
3 replies
20h5m

I was always curious - in fully remote IT (especially one located in another state/country), who does the actual on-site visits? Say, a PC part has to be replaced or a new laptop has to be deployed.

For the deployment I guess you can use something like ImmyBot or Intune, but at some point someone has to be there and connect a new machine to the internet/intranet. How does that work in practice?

nilamo
1 replies
13h0m

How often is something like that actually needed, though? Once a month?

duckmysick
0 replies
10h14m

So they fly someone once a month? I can see how it gets expensive.

p1esk
0 replies
15h46m

In practice, you have one or two IT guys in office, and the rest remote (could be in India if the work is not classified).

sandworm101
0 replies
21h11m

> Your IT should always be remote. A laptop in the office is not any different from a laptop out of the office.

Maybe if you are working at Google, with infinite budgets and gleaming-new machines everywhere. But we have old stuff. We have phones that cannot be managed remotely. We have desktop computers that cannot get up and walk between offices unaided. We have fiberoptic wires that break when 60+yo buildings shift on their foundations. We have UPSs that cannot change their own batteries. We have antennas exposed to the wind/rain/snow. We also have innumerable systems that are either too old or too classified to be managed from a laptop at starbucks. None of this stuff can be fixed from home.

fnordpiglet
0 replies
15h0m

Anyone who doesn’t have power on after cycle and a network attached power cycle shouldn’t be allowed to employ people.

hn_throwaway_99
4 replies
16h59m

I'm really curious as to how ROWE works in practice for software developers, because the I'm extremely dubious.

In software development, there is usually an "infinite amount of work" to be done, so the important thing is to prioritize well as a lot of that work will never get done. But what does it mean to say "you've met all your objectives"? If you say "great, I finished all my objectives in 20 hours this week, see you at the beach", this company will eventually get killed by competitors who are just as productive yet work 40+ hours a week.

But fundamentally, the idea of "you've met your objectives, now you can go home" just feels like a fantasy in the world of software development.

p1esk
3 replies
15h39m

What do you do during sprint planning meetings if you don’t know your objectives?

hn_throwaway_99
2 replies
15h10m

But it's not like you complete your objectives and then you say "great, we're all done, let's go home." Every company I've ever worked for had a backlog a mile long, and we knew we'd probably only ever get to 20% of it or so. The whole purpose of sprint planning is to just prioritize the most important stuff to work on for the next sprint, but if the teams capacity increases you'd pull more stuff in.

p1esk
1 replies
12h32m

No, the purpose of sprint planning is to specify (more ot less) exactly what you plan to do this sprint. Usually the best case scenario. You make your best effort to finish the things you outlined, sometimes you manage to do it, sometimes you don’t, but why would you ever try to do more than you planned to do? If you’ve done the tasks, you’re done, period, go relax, grab a beer, wait till the next sprint. You’ve literally done your job. Why in the world would you want to “pull more stuff in”?

That’s how I’ve done it, and have seen it done in the last 7 companies I worked at.

Your reasoning is so foreign to me. The only way it makes sense if you are speaking as a manager.

hn_throwaway_99
0 replies
10h7m

If you’ve done the tasks, you’re done, period, go relax, grab a beer, wait till the next sprint.

Well, to each their own, but that has never been the case in any of the companies I've worked at. In fairness, over the fast 5 years or so more and more the companies I've worked at have used Kanban over sprint planning, because usually the "estimation" part of agile (i.e. the cards, the voting) has proven to be the most useless piece of agile.

nox101
1 replies
18h31m

I have no idea how metrics would be measured unless the work is always the same and trivial.

In my job, every problem seems to take a random amount of time. It might be the thing I'm assigned is trival and done in 1-2 hrs. It might be it would be trivial but it pointed out an issue elsewhere than needs to be fixed first. It might be trivial but the CI was down for 6hrs. It might be trival but requires some other library to roll to a new version and the roll broke something else. It might look trivial but turns out to need a non trival refactor to work.

I ran into that last one yesterday where I started on an issue that seemed like it should be trivial, in an object with different options than it currently has. These objects are cached by their options since they are heavy. The code that gets an existing or new one is 5 levels deep. It creates them from a factory but the info this new issue needs needs to query the factory to figure out the creation options. So, what seemed like a 10-15 min change is going to be several hours to decide how to surface or pass that factory to/from the top level

the point being, from outside management is going to see different levels of work. It's not as trivial as "created N widgets an hour" nor is it as trivial as "lines per hour"

I feel like there could be lots of unintended consequences with people only taking the smallest tasks or whatever to avoid taking tasks that take longer or to find ways to account things so it looks like they're doing more, etc

ozim
0 replies
17h50m

This is exactly why I oppose any dashboards with amount of completed tasks per employee.

This just gives wrong ideas to the team.

gymbeaux
0 replies
11h33m

It’s interesting and encouraging to see this working in the real world. I think most “leaders” are concerned about having to come up with what people, especially software engineers, should be getting done in X amount of time, which I sympathize with… but clearly it’s doable. Perhaps the concern is that high-performers will produce less, and low-performers will be canned, only for the high-performers to have to pick up the slack, or there just be a net negative in total work produced in X amount of time because some engineers have been fired for performance but there’s no one to replace them and others aren’t allowed/able to work more to compensate.

gnicholas
0 replies
12h48m

Do you think the lack of turnover might be affected by the current macroeconomic factors? It feels like lots of people have been holding onto their jobs for the last 18 months for this reason.

bb123
10 replies
23h49m

I’d happily take a 20% pay cut for a 4 day work week, if it was offered.

wahnfrieden
3 replies
17h44m

And would you work as much unpaid overtime as you would with a salaried 5 day work week job when pressured to by your boss, owner and peers?

kwhitefoot
1 replies
5h3m

I never have been pressured by my boss to do unpaid overtime.

wahnfrieden
0 replies
3h33m

Good for you!

ngc248
0 replies
11h6m

That is what it would devolve into.

totololo
1 replies
23h45m

I think that's common in Switzerland. They call it 80% contracts.

kwhitefoot
0 replies
5h4m

Similarly in Norway.

vidarh
0 replies
21h51m

It's "sort of" what I've done, only last time I changed jobs I told recruiters it'd take 20%-30% more for me to come into the office full time, and pro-rated below that.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
0 replies
23h18m

I would too but only after I raise my base rate by 25%. If I'm on a salary and have project deadlines it's the same thing anyway.

bojan
0 replies
19h21m

This is very common in the Netherlands.

ben_w
0 replies
19h20m

I'm told it's a legal requirement for companies to provide that on request here in Germany, though I've never actually tried that yet, don't know any caveats.

risyachka
8 replies
22h23m

The work week went from 6 days to 5 and economy growth didn’t stall (when people were waaay less productive)

My bet is literally nothing will change if we go to 4-day work week.

Can’t say about others but my productivity goes way up with an extra weekend. I am way more rested and eager to do some work in Monday.

nickff
3 replies
22h3m

Reducing the number of days worked per week per individual increases (relative) overhead costs, including administrative costs, benefits (most notably including healthcare), and capital costs (because everything is being used less, but still devaluing). These are all real changes with real impacts.

Also of note, the increase in these costs from going down to 4 days will be substantially larger than the prior one (due to the smaller dividend).

ipaddr
2 replies
21h48m

Capital costs spent do not go up. An opportunity for saving exist. One extra day means less electrical costs. Admin costs remain static. These costs do not change unless you are hiring someone for that one day.

The costs are not going up substantially or at all for most 9/5 businesses

nickff
1 replies
20h49m

Capital expense is ~= depreciation, which is inversely proportional to the amount of work performed with a given capital asset.

ipaddr
0 replies
2h43m

Why would depreciation increase with less usage? Wouldn't the opposite occur? Chairs last longer. Copier would last longer.

Gustomaximus
3 replies
20h14m

I suspect we'd see a bunch of change. A difference of when we moved 6 to 5 days is in those times most business were closed on the weekends + generally people were more tied to one company for longer term. Plus 2 days off is very different than 3 in terms of alternate work opportunity.

From that a likely issue is a steep increase in people having second jobs so they work a 4 day job and a second 2/3 day job.

I suspect the 4 day week will work well for people with good salaries and market power, but encourage working class to 'work the weekend' in alternate jobs resulting in lower downtime.

For this I'd actually like a 4 day week but with it either more restricted business opening on Sunday type thing or significant wage multiples over 3 day weekends to encourage time off vs the 24/7 economy.

ghaff
2 replies
18h8m

I suspect a lot of the people yearning for 4 day work weeks wouldn't actually want to return to the days when most stores and other institutions were closed on Sundays.

Sakos
1 replies
11h7m

As somebody who lives in Germany where everything is closed on Sundays, uh, it really isn't that bad. It's fine, actually. I'll take 4 day work weeks happily.

ghaff
0 replies
16m

As someone who went to school in a state where almost nothing was open on Sunday at the time it was pretty annoying given that I was usually pretty busy (or what passed for it at the time) the other 6 days.

These days I wouldn't really care because I have a lot of flexibility.

gchamonlive
3 replies
21h39m

4day work week won't do magic by itself. The company committing to it must also apply the necessary modifications and seek innovation to tap into this productivity well.

It's like in the Industrial revolution when kids (!!) shift were lowered from 18 hours to 12-8 hours. Adults that were assisted by kids also couldn't maintain the same 18 hours shift and for the factories to maintain productivity they had to implement innovations. And would you look at that, the average textile factory today is orders of magnitude more productive and efficient than that of the 19th century.

wahnfrieden
2 replies
21h3m

Conditions for factory workers in the US haven't improved because it turned out to be an optimal way to improve productivity. It's because of worker movements demanding it again and again.

Those productivity innovations you mention would've come either way. In other countries with worse working conditions and even less labor power than the US, factory owners reap the benefits of applying such productivity innovations AND the increased output of longer working hours than is generally tolerated by US workers.

From the parent comment:

but for corporations to adopt this there has to be a measurable benefit to the company as well.

This is only true in a world where workers are entirely subservient to their masters.

gchamonlive
1 replies
20h21m

Oh sure, don't get me wrong. I am not a techno-positivist that believes innovations will save us from evil. That was only to illustrate how a change in working policy has to go alongside technical and cultural adaptations.

These worker movements are crucial to keep workers from getting both pressured to produce more AND work longer hours.

wahnfrieden
0 replies
19h42m

Got it.

The parent’s line about a company needing to maintain or increase productivity in order to make an improvement to working conditions is one that only those truly part of ownership should be making. Especially when it’s never said so in both directions: if productivity improved (through automation or otherwise) then the workers shouldn’t have to work as long hours. Only actual owners get to work less if they wish to in wage labor business. And it is their privilege to demand workers increase or maintain productivity if they wish to work fewer hours.

detourdog
3 replies
23h31m

Also large organizations could have smaller facilities by using staggered schedules.

ghaff
2 replies
21h12m

Now you're hoteling though which people complain about as well.

detourdog
1 replies
21h6m

What I have heard is that you can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people none of the time.

I also think the USA is marching towards making the gig economy the new normal so fractional employment will be come normal.

ghaff
0 replies
21h2m

And some people are fine with that. I know freelancers and consultants who work for multiple companies (generally remotely) and they wouldn't have it any other way.

whatyesaid
2 replies
23h43m

If most companies become 4 day work week, that would be the new floor and not a perk no more?

You might still have 5 day work week employees who get paid more but to them the perk is money/earlier retirement.

esafak
0 replies
20h32m

Mission accomplished. Otherwise what's the point of increasing productivity? If we can get the work done in less time, we should be able to work less. In an ideal world, we would work as little or as much as we want and be compensated accordingly.

EForEndeavour
0 replies
23h41m

That's true for all perks: if all firms offered the same perk, that becomes the new floor. But this does not stop companies from offering perks.

kevinventullo
1 replies
23h25m

domain knowledge gained over decades really is a competitive advantage if your employees commonly have it

I’m not so sure. On the one hand, it seems nearly tautological. Yet, so much of the comp structure and general attitude towards employees in big tech seems to incentivize job hopping every few years. I would prefer not having to do that, but my hand is forced.

autoexecbat
0 replies
22h33m

It's pretty clear to me that deep knowledge of how the company works and the historical quirks of how things happened, and how the tech-debt works, is considered of only small value to a typical company. I've seen countless examples of people in such positions being discarded without a thought during layoffs.

Additionally, having deep expertise in a particular technical area can protect you somewhat during a layoff, but also makes you easier to define a replacement for if there is more that one of you.

Companies will get what they pay for. They pay for short term gain.

tshaddox
0 replies
21h2m

but for corporations to adopt this there has to be a measurable benefit to the company as well.

I do think there is one clear benefit as measured in the article - employee retention.

Well, sure, I think that's a given. This is also, for example, why companies pay their employees money in exchange for their labor. The measurable benefit to the company is that very few people would work for free.

gklitz
0 replies
9m

There's no doubt that there's a benefit to the employee, but for corporations to adopt this there has to be a measurable benefit to the company as well.

Thats a very Murican way to look at it. You know, workers Can also just demand it, worked for a lot og stuff in Europe. Like 5week vacation minimum. Unlimited paid sickdays, Paternity and maternity leave etc.

The idea that everything has to be a net positive for corporations is silly. We are a society of people, and corporations have to be a net positive for our society not the other way around.

fasa99
0 replies
39m

Here's the thing.

If you come in with low-mid trust and say "Expectations are 9-5, 5 days a week, in office" that's what you'll get.

If you come in with high-trust and say "four day workweek, flexible hours, remote" you may well get 5-6 days a week most weeks and 7 days a week in crunch times, still with high morale.

People are fearful of the latter approach because if the wrong people are hired, it can absolutely be abused. The flipside is that the former approach will seem stifling to the right people.

Jzush
0 replies
4h56m

I have to wonder about that. There has been data for years now, confirmed via Covid that work from home not only works but saves companies millions in rent/bills/equipment and that doesn’t even include things like cheaper insurance rates due to having less people on the premises. And yet companies are chomping at the bit to get people to return to the office.

There seems to be a fine balance CEOs and board members want to hit between saving money and ensuring they have their boots as firmly placed on their lessers as possible.

AndrewKemendo
0 replies
17h31m

There's no doubt that there's a benefit to the employee, but for corporations to adopt this there has to be a measurable benefit to the company as well.

This assumes that the company and employees must have adversarial priorities. This is only true if that’s how the company wants to be structured

Employee owned companies have no such adversarial structures

The fact that a large number, not all, of billion dollar companies are not employee owned, is not a proof that it’s the optimal way to run a company. It’s only optimal for Capital

In fact most companies are employee owned if for no other reason than they are small LLCs you don’t know the name of but are, for example, driving your FedEx packages around.

2muchcoffeeman
0 replies
16h49m

I worked a 4 day week for over a year while the pandemic was going. I'm not sure about total output, but per day, I was definitely more productive since everyone had different days off.

I got paid for 1 day LESS, so I eventually went back to 5 days. I'd rather get paid for a full day of work, while we all slack off a bit.

ActionHank
65 replies
1d2h

I can't wait for companies to use this as a way to drive down pay

toomuchtodo
48 replies
1d1h

Great callout for unionizing. Because corporations would extract as much from workers as they could without boundaries. Labor law modifications will help as well, but that takes longer as you wait for old political and business leaders to age out (and take their work ideas with them).

FirmwareBurner
47 replies
1d1h

Unionizing is not enough. 4/day workweek needs to be universally standardized across the OECD/world for it to stick, because whether we like it or not, countries and economies are in competition with each other. And if one factory can churn out X steel widgets and another one only X -20% because they work only 4 days per week, then all the jobs and industry will move to the former as the latter will not be competitive anymore.

The 4 day workweek seems to currently work without loosing productivity in wealthy service based economies like Amsterdam, the City of London, etc where a lot of "work" is just Blue Chip companies with theatrics and endless meetings while riding the gravy train of other peoples' productivity from across the globe who don't have access to a 4 day week doing all the heavy lifting(basically economic neo-colonialism), but this obviously can't scale across economies that actually depend on actually designing and making the stuff the wealthy economies speculate on.

jedberg
13 replies
1d

And if one factory can churn out X steel widgets and another one only X -20% because they work only 4 days per week,

When was the last time you saw a widget factory running 8 hours a day 5 days a week? Factories already run 24/7/365. They hire enough workers for their own economics to make sense (either enough so they all work no more than 40 a week or they just pay a bunch of overtime). If a 4 day workweek became standard it would just mean hiring more people or giving more overtime, since it's not the people that need to be optimized in that equation.

But for knowledge work it makes a ton of sense. It's been repeatedly shown that knowledge workers are equally if not more productive at 32 hours a week vs 40 hours a week.

FirmwareBurner
12 replies
1d

>But for knowledge work it makes a ton of sense. It's been repeatedly shown that knowledge workers are equally if not more productive at 32 hours a week vs 40 hours a week.

But then why hasn't it become the norm already and even in some cases, like in Asia, people are forced to stay in the office way more hours than 40?

If I take that research and show it to my boss saying I should work 32 hours/week instead of 40 for the same pay, he'll most likely laugh in my face and tell me to go back to work.

Clearly the vast majority of companies don't believe the same research, otherwise we'd be working 32 hours/week a long time ago.

jedberg
11 replies
1d

For the same reason companies are forcing return to office -- control. They like to see their people working, it makes them feel like better managers.

FirmwareBurner
10 replies
1d

I don't buy this.

I think my manager would also like to work just 32 hours/week instead of 40 for the same pay. So weh do we stop blaming them?

jedberg
8 replies
23h57m

I'm sure your manager does. They aren't the ones demanding 40 hours and return to office.

It's the C-suite that is doing it. The C-Suite got where they are because they are extroverts who excel at in person interactions. They can't use that skill unless you're there in front of them. They also came up in a world where everyone worked in an office 40 hours a week. And since they are in charge, they get to choose the rules of engagement, and are seemingly choosing to ignore productivity studies that show their decisions don't make sense.

Eventually they will be eclipsed by C-Suites that follow the science as they will get out-competed. But it will take decades.

FirmwareBurner
7 replies
23h37m

>and are seemingly choosing to ignore productivity studies that show their decisions don't make sense.

I also don't buy this. Companies are all profit oriented and don't like leaving money on the table if research shows there is left over money on the table.

They can't monetize control but they can monetize money. If research would show they would make more profits using AWS instead of Azure(example pulled out of my ass for simplicity), they would immediately switch to it.

So if research would be universal and clear cut that working 32 hours outcompetes those companies working 40 hours, then at least a significant proportion of companies would be using this new way of work as leverage to outcompete their competitors working 40 and beat them at profits and market share, and then that would become the new norm as it's the proven winning strategy, since that's how competition in capitalism works.

But so far that's not been the case.

jedberg
5 replies
22h36m

Return-to-office mandates aren't making companies more valuable and productive, study finds:

https://www.businessinsider.com/return-to-office-mandates-re...

"Any one of the three economic factors described above (real estate, retention and recruitment), by itself, could justify the alleged loss in productivity. When you consider all three, it is extremely hard to imagine any organization for which the losses resulting from a strict RTO policy would be offset by a possible increase in worker productivity. As a further consideration, a strict RTO policy will also disproportionally impact certain traditionally disadvantaged groups, leading to further decreases in organizational diversity.":

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paologaudiano/2023/08/14/here-i...

People return to offices, productivity plunges:

https://ktla.com/news/money-business/people-return-to-office...

The return to the office could be the real reason for the slump in productivity. Here’s the data to prove it:

https://fortune.com/2023/02/16/return-office-real-reason-slu...

Expecting a return to office will boost worker productivity is ‘magical thinking,’ says Meta’s former director of remote work

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/expecting-return-office-boost...

FirmwareBurner
3 replies
22h21m

I'm talking about 32 vs 40 h per week productivity, not WFH productivity. What's one have to do with the other?

jedberg
1 replies
21h1m

You said you didn’t believe C-suites were ignoring things that could make them more money. I showed you a bunch of cases where C-suites are hurting themselves by ignoring data.

FirmwareBurner
0 replies
20h30m

Except the money they currently make, or not make, is directly related to the stock market's performance or lack thereof due to the zero interest days being over, not to that of WFH or RTO employees.

ghaff
0 replies
20h56m

Well, I suspect that--based on what I've seen from talking to people--remote makes it easier to do no-meeting, maybe do some light cleanup Fridays. So there's some relationship probably.

toomuchtodo
0 replies
22h23m

Highly factualized comment. I believe the mental model in question is not yet flexible enough to update based on the data, and there is an expectation of logic from fancy emotional monkeys ("executive leadership") grounded in status, control, and work as identity.

So if research would be universal and clear cut that working 32 hours outcompetes those companies working 40 hours, then at least a significant proportion of companies would be using this new way of work as leverage to outcompete their competitors working 40 and beat them at profits and market share, and then that would become the new norm as it's the proven winning strategy, since that's how competition in capitalism works.

If only it were that simple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/15/alibabas-jack-ma-working-ove...

https://news.gallup.com/poll/175400/workers-sense-identity-j...

https://www.fastcompany.com/90955495/happiness-work-survey-u...

https://www.careerchange.com/newsletters/working-standards-u...

https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours

mbravorus
0 replies
5h27m

Your reply seems to assume that companies are efficient. Which is not the case, and the larger the company, the lower internal s/n ratio and, arguably, the larger percent of wastage.

Also, "immediately" switching across cloud vendors is not even a pipe dream, it's an impossibility and the very act of switching is incredibly expensive both short and long term (unless your cloud usage is one VM or so). So there's no simplicity in that example, it's a counter-example.

bobthepanda
0 replies
23h59m

His manager wants control too, and that goes all the way up the chain.

bombcar
13 replies
1d

It would be decently hard to find an argument against the 4 day workweek that would not ALSO apply to the 5 day workweek (compared to 6) - perhaps the only real one is "it's what everyone does".

FirmwareBurner
12 replies
1d

But then why work 4 day/week and not 3, when 4 days/week becomes the new normal that burns people out? And then why not work 2 days instead of 3? And so on.

How do we decide which model is the sustainable one?

mrguyorama
6 replies
23h20m

Because at a certain point it will be impossible to argue that "Knowledge workers can get as much done in X-1 days as in X days" because it's trivially untrue. The problem is that the brain is a muscle and gets really really tired solving knowledge problems all day because it is optimized to avoid doing that at as much as possible because it is energy intensive and the ancient human who solved everything perfectly rationally died of starvation while the one that relied on imperfect heuristics and belief got to eat.

Solving super hard Sudoku puzzles 40 hours a week will take a toll on your brain that solving super hard Sudoku puzzles 1 hour a week empirically cannot.

How do we decide which model is the sustainable one?

Through the exact science you say you "don't buy" because you seem to believe companies operating in a flawed market are better at finding ground truth than literal science.

FirmwareBurner
5 replies
23h14m

>Through the exact science you say you "don't buy" because you seem to believe companies operating in a flawed market are better at finding ground truth than literal science.

I'm saying companies believe in science that leads to profit, as the market can stay irrational longer than companies can stay solvent.

Same how science showed switching to EUV lithography is better than sticking to DUV and then all companies adopted that, if science would also show workers working 32h per week results in more profit for them than 40h, then they would all switch in a heart beat to capture all that money left on the table by their competitors still stuck in their ancient 40h workweek.

But that hasn't happened.

bombcar
4 replies
23h2m

Companies (currently) compete by offering more money - if the pool of applicants dried up enough, perhaps they'd begin competing by offering more time.

The problem is if they pay you $x per year, they don't care how many hours you work, as long as the job gets done. So something that makes their life a bit more annoying (no replies on Friday) but makes your life amazingly better won't get done.

FirmwareBurner
3 replies
22h16m

>Companies (currently) compete by offering more money - if the pool of applicants dried up enough, perhaps they'd begin competing by offering more time.

Because more money is what most candidates prioritize when job hopping, because when buying a house they can pay it with that money but can't pay it with more time off.

The only people who prioritize less hours for less money are those who are already fortunate enough to have enough money but those can always choose to work less hours for proportionately less pay.

Like it or not, there are so many people in this rat race trying to build wealth that 40h and more money is preferable to 32h and less money. That's why the 40h sticks and the negotiation is done on money.

ghaff
2 replies
20h52m

Because more money is what most candidates prioritize when job hopping, because when buying a house they can pay it with that money but can't pay it with more time off.

Although you could argue that's already the case in a lot of Europe vs. parts of the US. Of course, it's an imperfect comparison because of the barriers to moving countries or even acquiring a remote job in a different country.

bombcar
1 replies
16h25m

And money is money, it's a known quantity. Time is more ephemeral and for many "knowledge jobs" people work off the clock anyway; so having every Friday off may sound great but you may be (correctly) afraid it's going to turn into a half-day's work anyway.

And there are things you can do to turn money into time, it's possible but not as easy to go the other way around when you're salaried.

ghaff
0 replies
15h47m

Conversion is difficult without e.g. working at at a company that lets you take a week or two or two of leave a year (or just looking the other way). You can have a side business but that's harder to turn into something that's actually financially competitive with a professional-level salary and isn't ethically questionable.

ssklash
4 replies
1d

Shouldn't the goal be to work as little as possible? Infinite growth in a finite world just makes us all work harder than necessary, and instead of using productivity and efficiency gains to benefit people/workers, they just go to pad some company's stock price.

FirmwareBurner
3 replies
1d

>Shouldn't the goal be to work as little as possible?

It's my goal indeed, but not the goal of my country, the economy and the businesses in it who provide the jobs I work for and also lobby for the labor laws my EU country has.

Of course doing no work at all while getting paid loads would be the dream, but I wasn't talking about dreams, I was talking about reality. And the reality is way different than what you dream of.

How do we make less working days a reality for everyone, instead of just ~60 companies form the UK?

bombcar
2 replies
23h30m

Too bad the "government goal of X% employment (whatever that is)" couldn't be met by tuning the workweek up and down instead of futzing with interest percentages.

FirmwareBurner
1 replies
22h15m

So why haven't they done it? Seems like a good way to get votes. "If you vote for me you'll only work 4 days/week."

cellu
0 replies
2h55m

Labour tried in the UK and nobody voted for them lol

toomuchtodo
6 replies
1d1h

I agree! But workers can organize today while moving forward improvement with each election result (which will take time; for example, 1.8M voters over the age of 55 die every year, 4M young folks age into voting ability at 18 in the US). Luckily, the entire world is getting old fast [1] [2] [3], which means there is a shrinking population of total workers; makes it more difficult to have workers compete against each other race to the bottom style.

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/ageing-global-populat...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_China

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8505790/

FirmwareBurner
5 replies
1d1h

Won't less workers also mean less consumers therefore less demands for goods and sdervices?

People keep saying how the declining demographics will mean the workers have more leverage but when will that come? As currently I'm struggling to find a job and a recruiter who rejected me just told me they have huge supply of "strong candidates" and they don't need to compromise anymore on offering WFH or accepting only English speaking candidates.

Maybe by the time I retire I can see that leverage?

toomuchtodo
4 replies
1d1h

Won't less workers also mean less consumers therefore less demands for goods and sdervices?

Longer convo for another thread, but TLDR yes, "structural decline." Trajectory is a function of how fast folks age out of the working population (retire or death), because cohorts coming up behind them keep shrinking.

EDIT: Put some contact info in your profile.

sokoloff
2 replies
19h46m

EDIT: Put some contact info in your profile.

That’s a particularly strange demand to make as someone who doesn’t expose your own contact info.

toomuchtodo
1 replies
19h25m

I'm struggling to find a job

I’m connected with over 2k recruiters and was low key trying to help.

FirmwareBurner
0 replies
6h47m

My email is in my profile if you wish to reach out. Cheers!

FirmwareBurner
0 replies
1d

>EDIT: Put some contact info in your profile.

For what?

red_admiral
5 replies
1d1h

We went from "six days thou shalt labour" to the 5-day week for a number of reasons. Unions were one reason, Henry Ford was another [1][2]. His original argument was that if we give workers an extra day of leisure time, there'll be more demand for leisure products to consume - like, you know, Model T cars. Then, Ford noticed that his new 5-day workers were so much more productive per hour than before, that it more than made up the difference for the extra hours not worked.

So I'd have two criticisms of your "X-20%" figure. The first is that just because individual workers are only in 4 days a week, doesn't have to mean the factory only operates 4 days a week; indeed a lot of steel factories do some kind of shift work anyway because firing up a furnace from cold is hugely inefficient. Sure, that means more heads total and so more HR expenses than if everyone worked 5 days, but I don't think it adds up to the 20% you quoted.

Secondly, as in Ford's case, the extra productivity you get this way might be enough to more than offset the losses, and even increase your profits.

[1] https://www.morningbrew.com/sidekick/stories/history-five-da... [2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/american-... (But note, the claim that moving to a 5-day week was a pay cut needs some context. The 5-day week started in 1926. But in 1914, Ford already doubled his workers' wages from $2.50/day (which was already not bad by the standards of the time) to $5/day, almost unheard of at the time - though initially with strings attached [3] which were later removed. So working 5 days a week at Ford's factory could well have still brought in more net pay a week than 6 days a week at a competitor in 1926. [3] https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/henry-ford-implements-5...

FirmwareBurner
4 replies
21h21m

>Secondly, as in Ford's case, the extra productivity you get this way might be enough to more than offset the losses, and even increase your profits.

Henry Ford's revenue boost firstly came from his improvements to automation and innovative highly optimized production line assembly processes, not because le let his workers work 5 days a week instead of 6.

It was those innovations that allowed him to reduce the numbers of worker hours needed while get same productivity levels or higher, not vice versa as they didn't just magically come from working his workers less but from innovations to production lines efficiency. Workers working less was a consequence of that, not the cause.

esafak
2 replies
20h23m

And while productivity has steadily risen since then, we still work five days/week.

FirmwareBurner
1 replies
20h20m

Shareholder returns have also never been higher. Coincidence?

toomuchtodo
0 replies
19h56m

Why should shareholder returns be so high when we could all work less? That is where the productivity wage delta is going: shareholder returns.

red_admiral
0 replies
7h23m

I think we're agreeing more than we disagree, but I'd point out some sections from the 2005 IGDA post on work in the games industry a.k.a. "reaction to ea_spouse" at https://igda.org/resources-archive/why-crunch-mode-doesnt-wo...:

Ernst Abbe, the head of one of the greatest German factories, wrote many years ago that the shortening from nine to eight hours, that is, a cutting-down of more than 10 per cent, did not involve a reduction of the day’s product, but an increase, and that this increase did not result from any supplementary efforts by which the intensity of the work would be reinforced in an unhygienic way. This conviction of Abbe still seems to hold true after millions of experiments over the whole globe.

This was written 1913, about the time when Ford's automation was just getting going - the "many years ago" and the fact that Abbe died 1905, shows his studies were referring to a time before Ford's production lines and efficiency gains.

That output does not rise or fall in direct proportion to the number of hours worked is a lesson that seemingly has to be relearned each generation. In 1848, the English parliament passed the ten-hours law and total output per-worker, per-day increased. In the 1890s employers experimented widely with the eight hour day and repeatedly found that total output per-worker increased. In the first decades of the 20th century, Frederick W. Taylor, the originator of “scientific management” prescribed reduced work times and attained remarkable increases in per-worker output.

This too is from a pre-Ford time.

So I would reply that while Ford's innovations might have compounded any gains from shorter working hours, such gains have been found in many other places and times. indeed, the IGDA summarises their evidence by saying "five-day weeks of eight-hour days maximize long-term output in every industry that has been studied over the past century".

CraigJPerry
5 replies
1d

> And if one factory can churn out X steel widgets and another X -20% because they work only 4 days per week

The number of widgets produced and the price asked for them is not a function of workdays.

You’d need to control for quality of widget produced - and since buyers are human that may mean perceived quality rather than some absolute assessment of quality.

You’d need to control for location & distance to market/customer for each widget produced.

You’d need to control for efficiency of production process.

You’d need to control for… you get the point. The only possible way your idea could stand would be if all else was held equal - and that’s simply not possible outside of horse shit models.

Models can be useful, but not like this. This is a BS way to think about an economic model.

FirmwareBurner
4 replies
1d

>You’d need to control for… you get the point.

Exactly. And most companies and factories in the west have already optimized for all these factors to get maximum output on a 5 day work week. Moving to a 4 day workweek would be an automatic production loss and therefore a loss on economic competitiveness compared top those still on 5.

What you're talking about, companies who can lower working hours without loosing productivity and competitiveness are very few and far between, usually world champions who have a captive market to themselves like Nvidia, ASML, Airbus, high end service jobs, etc, but that's only a microscopic share of the total amount of players on the market. The rest are firing on all cylinders trying to overtake or catch up to those established market players, and if you ever worked at a startup, it usually means longer hours, not fewer.

>This is a BS way to think about an economic model.

What's the better way? If all companies could get the same levels of productivity form 4 days a weeks from 5 why haven't they done that already?

CraigJPerry
3 replies
23h36m

> have already optimized for all these factors

Factories and companies start and die all the time. The idea that some steady state equilibrium exists is only in these BS models.

> production loss and therefore a loss on economic competitiveness

Apple is less competitive because it makes less iPhones than Samsung?

> What's the better way?

Stop pretending models predict reality perfectly.

FirmwareBurner
2 replies
23h33m

>Stop pretending models predict reality perfectly.

But what it reality to you and how do you describe it if not by models?

CraigJPerry
1 replies
22h43m

> But what it reality to you

Complicated. It’s rare for any interesting scenario not to be complicated.

> how do you describe it

By aiming for honesty and accuracy but with enough humility to realise these absolutes are unachievable in most interesting cases. To make it more concrete in this particular case It means being careful to state assumptions is essential.

FirmwareBurner
0 replies
22h29m

But you haven't described anything, you just said it's complicated.

sokoloff
5 replies
1d

That seems reasonable. Take two equivalent companies, one that has a 4-day workweek and an otherwise identical one that has a 5-day workweek.

Which one would you rather work for? Which one do you think will have a relative abundance of applicants (read: supply of labor)? Which other one do you think will have a lower supply of labor and might need to pay more to attract candidates?

It seems logical that a company offering 4-day workweek would be more attractive and, on a balance of factors, could pay less to attract the same workforce.

Flip it around. If a four-day workweek was the standard, I feel like literally everyone would agree that companies who are trying to introduce a five-day workweek would have to pay more.

ausbah
3 replies
21h1m

if productivity is the same why should i be paid less just because # of hours is lower? which isn’t even always the case as these companies will do 9-10 hour days

sokoloff
0 replies
20h34m

It’s not a matter of philosophy (“should”) but rather of economics.

I think that the balance of supply and demand will tend to have the market-clearing comp be somewhat lower, assuming that the offered labor for four-day weeks is well in excess of the demanded labor for four-day weeks.

datadrivenangel
0 replies
20h34m

Because management will be better?

IshKebab
0 replies
20h6m

Because productivity is not the same.

bobthepanda
0 replies
1d

Probably true. Today there are generally premiums for working weekends or nights.

codegeek
4 replies
1d

Why not though. If you are getting $x for 5 days, why should you not get $x * 0.8 for 4 days ?

dkjaudyeqooe
3 replies
1d

Because you're just as productive in those 4 days. Same pay for same results. 5 days doesn't make you any more productive.

matchbok
1 replies
15h43m

Then why not 2 days?

There is a massive hole in your logic.

cellu
0 replies
2h46m

Where’s the hold? If we reached a pint where we are as much as productive with only 2 days so be it

codegeek
0 replies
21h13m

That's one hypothesis. Why not then 3 days ? 2 days ? Where do u draw the line ?

switch007
3 replies
23h18m

I think that’s exactly the driver behind it

glitchcrab
2 replies
23h2m

Not necessarily - I work for a company which went down to a 4 day work week about 2 years ago and the goal is entirely to improve employee wellbeing. Salaries have not changed and will not change.

switch007
1 replies
7h38m

Do you still get decent inflation pay rises?

glitchcrab
0 replies
7h20m

Yes, last pay rise far exceeded inflation at the time.

dkjaudyeqooe
0 replies
1d

Can't if everyone did 4 days weeks. At some point weekends would become 3 days long. Market forces determine wages more than anything.

It's inevitable really.

j45
18 replies
1d2h

Working four 10 hour days doesn’t seem as much of a stretch compared to 8 hour days.

figmert
16 replies
1d2h

The point of a 4-day work week isn't to cram the 5th day into 4 days, it's completely removing the 5th day, thus working 8 hours every day for 4 days, as opposed to 10 hours for 5 days.

FirmwareBurner
13 replies
1d1h

Question: If they removed the 5th work day and the same amount of work got done, then management can say that basically the employees were slacking off for a day a week.

And if so, what's stopping them next to increase it back to 5 and chase 5 days worth of productivity out of 5 days/week instead of the previous 4 using the same efficiency gains as performance benchmarks of the 4 days/week?

jerf
4 replies
1d

The fact they already tried 5 days a week and it apparently didn't work. Why would anything be any different when going back?

It reminds me of the way that as we improve in our ability to automate laws, we're going to need to do a better job of thinking about what laws are for rather than assuming that simply reifying the current laws exactly into computerized enforcement will do what we expect: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17094010

Just because a butt is in a seat does not mean a butt is doing work. It wasn't true before, it isn't true now, and it won't be true if they try to squeeze another day out at the new efficiency levels. It may be a common delusion but there is no magic path to that level of productivity.

FirmwareBurner
3 replies
1d

>The fact they already tried 5 days a week and it apparently didn't work.

How didn't it work? Probably the devie you're typing this on was made by a person working 5 days/week, or way more if we're talking early iOS /Android devices.

jerf
2 replies
1d

I am speaking in the context of your own assumption in your post, that previously people were only doing 4 days of work in a 5 day week, so there's some option of getting people to work 5 days a week at the 4-day-a-week pace. Please don't equivocate on your own terminology for the purpose of hostilely misunderstanding my reply.

If you're going to roll with "actually people have in fact been productively working 5 days a week after all" than I would advise FirmwareBurner of 6 minutes ago to take the debate up with FirmwareBurner of 1 hour ago. I don't see that I'd add any value in mediating that discussion.

FirmwareBurner
1 replies
23h59m

I'm sorry, Your comment makes no sense to me.

zen928
0 replies
20h14m

I'll pile on since I find your "sudden" confusion on this comment chain to be a disgusting and shameful way to try and engage conversations with other people.

The top post tries to identify the results as reducing the hours of 5 days of work into 4, the response to that was highlighting that the goal wasn't to make up for missing hours but to try and measure the efficacy of needing that fifth day's 'worth' of hours. You then selectively choose how you interprete the topic to be either:

1) questioning why they couldn't use their results of 5 days VS 4 days to effectively say "if you're effective in 4, then why not 5?

then when questioned on how this doesn't make sense in the context of the article, feign confusion on the distinction and ignore the results of the article to flip flop to your other point:

2) questioning the articles results by asking others outside of the study to personally prove to you what the measure of "success" is since you see modern technology built with this framework (phones) as a reason why it shouldn't change

despite this being a nonsequitor that isn't a point anyone has shown interest in discussing. Then when asked why you went from being confused on why they couldn't use the results showing their effectiveness to try and enforce another "effective" day, to then denying the results and saying that it's already effective and to ask others to personally prove to you why it isn't effective (instead of reading the article).

Do you have any answer yet?

bongodongobob
4 replies
1d

For knowledge workers, being 100% productive for 8 hours a day 5 days a week is a lie.

I don't think anyone can truly deep focus 8 hours a day without burning out at some point.

FirmwareBurner
3 replies
1d

>For knowledge workers, being 100% productive for 8 hours a day 5 days a week is a lie.

Of course, but if this is a known fact, why are we still working 5 days a week as the norm and not 4?

Clearly inertia is more important to companies and legislators than facts.

Or that probably not all jobs are so leisurely and inefficient, that 5 days of actual productivity can be don in less.

hananova
2 replies
23h2m

Many of us only work 5 days a week officially, there's many of us that deliberately and knowingly slack off one day a week. Others will just slow down a little to fill the five days. Yet others will use WFH as an opportunity to do a 4 day work week.

FirmwareBurner
1 replies
22h25m

> there's many of us that deliberately and knowingly slack off one day a week

Many? I doubt it. Maybe many very privileged tech/big-corp workers in developed rich western countries, but globally that's not that many.

Your argument is exactly the argument companies use to justify not going 4 days a week. If workers already have it so good that they have free time to slack off one day out of 5 days per week what's to say they also won't slack off for a day at 4 days per week once that becomes the norm?

Don't get me wrong I'd be al for it, but your comment proves many already have it so much better even at 5 days/week.

bongodongobob
0 replies
15h50m

You have a choice. Work at 100%, 60% of the time, or work at 60% 100% of the time. It's not slacking off, it's managing mental health and endurance. You're not at 100% all the time. You're lying to yourself if you think you are. You may be spinning the tires, but the car isn't going as fast as you think it is.

vidarh
0 replies
1d1h

They can try. They will fail. If people could maintain that higher performance without suffering at a level people aren't willing to, many would.

maximus-decimus
0 replies
12m

If they made you work 24 hours a day and your work output didn't triple, then management can say that basically the employees were slacking off.

And obviously people won't dying because they're sleep deprived but because they're lazy.

Management can say anything, it doesn't make it true.

captainbland
0 replies
1d1h

I suppose the same forces that usually prevent a move from a 5 day week up to a 6 day week: it's unpopular and counterproductive. But I wouldn't be opposed to a 4 day week being privileged in law somehow.

pjerem
0 replies
1d2h

Yes, also without reducing salaries.

j45
0 replies
16h16m

To you.

In manufacturing industries this type of schedule is quite common. Not all industries are like tech or will follow it.

Companies that won’t do 4 days (32h) per week might do a slightly longer day instead. Maybe 9 hours worked with an hour lunch

Being paid for less hours (32) per week for 4 days is fine too.

huytersd
0 replies
1d1h

It’s a 32 hour work week

perfunctory
16 replies
1d

I personally first tried 4-day workweek about 10 years ago and still love it. That was one of the best decisions I made in my life.

Especially in software industry, it's not that hard to arrange I believe. Even easier if we do it collectively. And when more and more people do it and it becomes a norm, the income will just readjust and return to the current levels.

But even today, when it's still not a norm, and I have a reduced income compared to my fulltime working peers, I still consider it a bargain. Extra free day is totally worth it. I am basically paying for some extra happiness.

quaintdev
5 replies
1d

This is something that will never happen in India because no matter how bad you want 4 day work week theres always someone who will do full 5 days a week and do additional work over the weekend.

toomuchtodo
1 replies
1d

Really sucks that economic systems built on the ability to exploit surplus labor can persist. Lots of work left to be done. A bug to be patched.

SturgeonsLaw
0 replies
21h6m

The hard part is convincing the people who see that bug as a feature

Cheezmeister
1 replies
21h43m

theres always someone who will do full 5 days a week and do additional work over the weekend

Good for them. If the quality bar holds, they deserve to be rewarded.

Based on personal anecdata, the quality bar does not hold. Not in India, nor anywhere else.

Why employers can't see this on the balance sheet is a different discussion.

dspillett
0 replies
20h57m

> Why employers can't see this on the balance sheet is a different discussion.

Because it isn't on the balance sheet. The job gets done, the overtime is unpaid.

They assume that if the hours reduce, the job won't get done, they don't see each hour of less hours being productive because they've but been convinced to try the fewer hours option.

whatwhaaaaat
0 replies
23h37m

Sounds like the US should introduce similar legislation to what India did with the on soil stuff.

Arrath
5 replies
23h25m

Yeah some of the best times of my life have been on 4-day work weeks. Added bonus, they were 10 hours days so we not only got our 40 hours a week but a chunk of that was OT!

barbazoo
4 replies
22h28m

Usually the point is to reduce the total hours per week as well, i.e. 32h instead of 40h.

Arrath
2 replies
22h22m

Oh yeah I totally get it, but we were hourly rather than salary so it was the best of both worlds. We were working out of town so what's a couple extra hours a day on the site getting paid when your alternative is primarily the hotel room. For us the killer benefit was driving home Thursday night (avoiding all that extra Friday traffic) for a full extra day home with our families

Cheezmeister
1 replies
21h41m

Like defragging your weekly rhythm. I get it.

esafak
0 replies
20h31m

You've dated yourself with your magnetic hard drive :)

TheLML
0 replies
3h52m

I've switched to 90%, working a total of 36 hours, and spreading that to 9 hours per day. Not even much of a difference on work days, as I used to work more Monday through Thursday to have a shorter Friday. So it's basically 30 minutes more, and a day off. And only 10% less pay instead of 20%.

wes-k
2 replies
13h29m

3 day work weeks are best.

Most well paid developers would gladly take a 20% reduction in income for 50% more weekend right? So 4 days it is!

Well why stop there? I’ll take another 25% reduction for 33% more weekend. So 3 days it is!

But only the rich or a fool would then take an additional 33% reduction for a measly 25% bump to your weekend.

3 day work weeks are best. QED

suzzer99
1 replies
12h1m

For me 6 months on and 6 months off would be incredible. But of course by the time 6 months goes by, someone has learned how to do my job and maintain all the shit I built, and I'm no longer valuable. Also I lose my health insurance and probably seniority. But man would it be sweet if I could make it work.

TecoAndJix
0 replies
6h51m

This would be my dream setup as well. Heck I would do 7 days a week 12 hour days (with a few mental health days built in) for 6 months if it meant not having to think about work for the other 6. I'll even live on a cot at the office during the work 6!

me_me_me
0 replies
1d

the income will just readjust and return to the current levels.

hahaha, good to see some hopeful people around. But the MBA people will never let this happen.

They already reduce your salary based on location of your home (when remote), as if it matters if you do your work in office or whenever.

statquontrarian
14 replies
23h21m

I've been doing a 20-hour 3 day work week (50% of total pay) for a few years now and I love it. I'm outperforming a full-time colleague in total output.

Edited to add that the 3 day work week totals 20 hours.

op00to
3 replies
23h18m

What does your full time coworker say about that? Are you concerned at backlash or retaliation?

statquontrarian
2 replies
23h14m

I didn't mean to give the impression that I was boasting or that I bring this up with him or my management, but just that there's a somewhat objective relative measurement that shows that it's possible to keep up high output for some jobs. I was surprised that my _total_ output stayed so high after transitioning from 40 to 20 hours.

No backlash or retaliation so far after more than 2 years.

op00to
1 replies
19h58m

I didn’t mean to insinuate you were boasting! I apologize if that was the case.

I do my required work in 20 hours most weeks. I spend the rest of the 40 hour work week resting, learning, and working on myself. I am careful not to publicize this because I am concerned at backlash from colleagues who find they have to spend more time than me.

People work at different paces and provide different value to the company for many reasons. I may be efficient and effective, but I tend to burn out faster, hence the rest time.

statquontrarian
0 replies
14h30m

I think that's a good strategy.

jtr1
2 replies
14h47m

I did this for a few months while I was transitioning back from parental leave and was similarly insanely productive. It just made me absolutely ruthless about prioritizing. Part of it was motivation to keep up with ft colleagues while knowing I had a hard deadline when I would be back on baby duty, so not sure how replicable it is now, but it was wild to go through a few workdays with all the day trimmed out, and then have a very full extended weekend with family every week.

therealdrag0
0 replies
12h41m

But does ruthless prioritization mean you’re making other people do that work? You might feel more productive because you cut your day down to well defined tickets. But who is doing the dirty work to define the tickets, iterate with product, mentor and unblock other engineers, do on call, work on incident review actions etc etc.

statquontrarian
0 replies
14h38m

I also suspect ruthless prioritization is my main driver of increased productivity.

Almondsetat
2 replies
23h15m

Maybe I'm getting this wrong but... you're working 3/5 of the time, you're getting 1/2 of the money and you are earning the company > 100% than full time?

statquontrarian
1 replies
23h11m

I'm working 1/2 the time (7 hours Monday & Tuesday, and 6 hours Wednesday), and, yes, it even surprised me that my total productivity is about the same as when I worked 40 hours per week. It's even possible that my total productivity is actually greater than before but we don't have sufficiently precise metrics off of which to judge that.

theendisney4
0 replies
14h4m

We do have data from sports training. It is pretty simple: If you dont rest you wont grow. You get injured.

glenjamin
1 replies
23h17m

If you're producing more than a full-time colleague, does the 50% pay cut seem a bit harsh?

statquontrarian
0 replies
23h9m

Probably, yes, but I suspect that it's so hard to find this arrangement (20 hours per week, full benefits, and still very good pay despite it being 50% of total), that I'm just very content with the arrangement.

UncleOxidant
1 replies
17h21m

This is exactly what I'd like to do now that I'm in my 60s. I'd still like to work for several more years, but not full time. How did you arrange this? It seems to not be common in tech.

statquontrarian
0 replies
14h34m

It was mostly accidental: first, I took a 3 month leave of absence to explore a midlife crisis. I came back announcing I'd like to go half-time to do a masters degree which my company was okay with, and when that was over, I just never went back to full time and my company was okay with it.

I guess and hope that simply directly asking for this is another strategy (and what I plan to do if I ever lose this job); otherwise, performing the above sort of misdirection, consciously, might also help justify the exception for management and peers.

lzmibes
7 replies
23h54m

Employer and employee should be free to negotiate whatever arrangement is mutually agreeable. I don't think there needs to be any more to it than that

malux85
4 replies
23h49m

Except most employers just do what everyone else does - and one might say “the market forces them to” but that’s total nonsense.

Look at remote work, it was fairly uncommon in programming and very uncommon outside of programming.

Then everyone was forced to do it with Covid and now it’s much more common because it works. Everyone was free to negotiate at any time before and after Covid, but anything that was even mildly radical would be met with a hard no. Simply because nobody else does it that way.

I agree that it shouldn’t be mandated with laws, but I don’t agree that it should be left totally up to employer / employee because the power balance of negotiation still sits with the employer too much.

Unfortunately I don’t know what the solution is, we need some external force that’s not as firm as a law to push a large number of companies to 4 days, what could that be I wonder… ?

lzmibes
3 replies
23h20m

Did remote, partially remote, 3, 4 and 5 day weeks before COVID. It was always there. Did you ask? Do you need a union to ask for you?

piva00
2 replies
23h12m

No one said there wasn't, what was stated is that it wasn't common.

Great for you to manage to find those gigs, it's not representative of the more general trend.

It was always there, for a very few select opportunities. I only got 2 remote gigs for very early stage startups without an office before COVID (and I've been in this industry for 20 years), after it's been 70% of offers from recruiters telling me "we're remote friendly".

Do you understand the difference? If you don't like unions, don't join one, you're free to do it, as others are free to associate and be part of one. If you don't like a unionised place you can always move to another job, it will always be there for you, no worries.

lzmibes
1 replies
23h3m

Wasn't hard to find. Repeatly. Coincidence perhaps...

"Do I understand the difference?"

Sure, the free market is favourable for some. Others stand to benefit more from collectivisation.

piva00
0 replies
22h58m

It wasn't hard to find for you. In the market you were looking for a job, at the time you were looking for a job, given that the vast majority of people weren't working remotely before can we agree that it wasn't common nor easy to find for a vast swath of the population?

You seem to conflate your experience with the general experience, that's an extremely harmful bias to have since it signals you are unable to see the bigger picture, nor empathise with how others have very different life experiences...

Again, great for you, it wasn't the common experience.

vundercind
0 replies
23h44m

When my failing to find a job for three months is no more painful to me than an employer failing to fill a role for three months, and when applying and interviewing takes so little of my attention that I can also do several other things at the same time (as a company is not paralyzed by conducting some interviews and reviewing some applications), sure.

Since that will never happen—no.

piva00
0 replies
23h46m

Let me know when both parties have equal power to come to the negotiation table on equal grounds, until then, nah.

zooq_ai
6 replies
23h53m

This study is a perfect fit the HN crowd who won't question the methodology and incentive systems because it fits their narrative.

Of course employee are going to report happy. What next? a study saying "Employees love more money for the same work?"

harikb
1 replies
22h43m

Just curios, why single-out HN crowd though???. In a typical 'HN crowd' comment, it is usually about a persona that think 'tech is great' or 'tech can solve all problems', not this particular characterization of 'worker vs management'.

IshKebab
0 replies
20h7m

The HN crowd tends to have unrealistic views of money and employment, probably partly because software development is an unusual job - extremely well paid for relatively little work and responsibility - and partly because the kinds of people on HN are surprisingly naïve when it comes to economics (and also people; but that's not surprising).

Some examples:

* Never-ending optimism about UBI, despite the maths clearly not working. Kind of similar to this really.

* Expecting salary to exactly match value - i.e. to get the same pay remote working no matter where you live. The number of people here that fundamentally don't understand that salary is a supply/demand negotiation is weird. And they really don't think it through to the obvious conclusion if it did happen - they'd get paid the same as people in Eastern Europe or India.

I think a 4-day work week could eventually happen, but HN types like to pretend it will make people more productive which it absolutely won't. It probably won't reduce productivity to 80%. More like 90%. But it will happen as a cultural shift; not because it increases productivity.

bigfudge
1 replies
21h40m

Why not point to actual flaws in the methodology then? It’s a really interesting a very hard to run piece of research. Inevitably it will be flawed because tight real world experiments in economics are hard/impossible.

Aloisius
0 replies
12h13m

I mean... there are basically no robustness checks.They only had a pre- and post-intervention comparisons with no random comparison group for a counterfactual. They asked retrospective questions. There are multiple poorly documented interventions. The analysis of the non-positive responses is extremely limited and what does exist draws conclusions that reek of confirmation bias. Their response rate for surveys appears to be crap which brings up questions of sampling bias. There is a strong appearance of cherry-picking. The descriptive statistics are extremely lacking - no confidence intervals, standard deviation, etc. - giving an appearance of p-hacking.

leoff
0 replies
21h34m

Of course employee are going to report happy

isn't this also about the firms loving it? If it's a win/win for both sides, what's the problem?

beastman82
0 replies
23h42m

Sadly it's a reflection of this reporting. They quote exactly 1 of these leaders and couch the failures with suggestions of a failed methodology.

elawler24
6 replies
1d1h

This is what Keynes predicted might happen - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ecca.12439#...

That article notes most people can't make enough money from 15 hours of work to save up for retirement. I also wonder if "leisure" has to be redefined, since work and life blend so much online. What does 15 hours of work really mean in a knowledge work job?

sph
3 replies
1d1h

And many cannot save enough money for retirement on 40 hour a week either.

justsomehnguy
2 replies
23h54m

I see enough people with way more than 40h/w not being able to save the money.

loloquwowndueo
1 replies
22h7m

They just need to read mr money moustache.

ghaff
0 replies
21h6m

While I find a lot of his stuff is a calculated over-the-top schtick, it's also the case that a lot of people overspend on things that are largely luxuries and don't materially improve their quality of life.

throwaway-123b
1 replies
1d1h

For me and I think in the past leisure did not mean mindlesly doing something like nothing, it meant time after misery is gone. I see it as working necessary time at work that you likely do not want to do, like at a factory assembly line or farm, hospital, etc. After that, you can stay at work, but do something else, like engineering at that factory or what else there is you would like to do. This mean less working hours, more people could get a job, it is something like work sharing. It would allow older people to work too, since work day will be lower, it is not like old people can't work at all, they can't work as intensivelly. In the end, those who do not work at the moment, still connsume, they just do not produce what they consume. With smaller work day, they will be able to produce. By work here I mean work and firms that produce things related to "misery gone", not all there is. So if someone would like to work himself 16 h/day, ok, but not in those firms.

theendisney4
0 replies
14h10m

If everyone worked from 12 till 100 and the midle half of the population makes 24 hours the under and over aged would have to work 12 or so. 2x6 hours, 3x4 or 4x3 maybe 6x2.

You learn much more if you start young and keeping the expertice on the floor longer would also help.

If we reserve the younglings earnings for specific purchases productivity would increase even more.

bschne
5 replies
1d1h

I have some gripes with this group and their publications:

- They don't randomize pilots, so any effect you see is likely to be confounded

- In this publication, it appears there was ~50% attrition between the initial pilot and the follow-up study — again, a huge source of potential confounding

- As another example, in another publication, they showed a plot of GDP per capita against average working hours, and insinuated from the negative relationship that less working hours somehow made workers (causally) more productive, without even hinting at the obvious alternative explanation that people work less as they get more productive because they don't have to work as much to maintain standard of living.

I like that things like this are being tried, but I wish the research conducted on it were more intellectually honest and less obviously geared towards pursuing an agenda. The level of analysis here is more like a company marketing whitepaper than anything bordering on scientific.

Don't get me wrong, personally I think companies where it's feasible should just define minimum presence where the business needs it and leave it to employees where and when to do the work within those constraints depending on preferences and their situation. I don't have an axe to grind against working less (and in my circles it seems like many people are making this decision by reducing their workload to e.g. 80%, albeit at a corresponding salary cut). But the whole thing just seems a big disingenuous.

nxpnsv
3 replies
1d1h

How would you randomize 4 day work weeks in an unbiased way?

FredPret
2 replies
1d1h

You can't, which makes it difficult or maybe impossible to have hard facts about it

black_puppydog
1 replies
1d

seems like a bad excuse to not even try to go beyond shrugging/handwaving

FredPret
0 replies
22h38m

Nope - it's a great reason to not even start spreading more bullshit into the info-sphere.

(The same can be said for almost everything related to nutritional "science".)

If we don't have a good mechanism for knowing something is true or not, we should acknowledge that and approach the problem philosophically / aesthetically.

We need to know what we know so that we can use knowledge as our building blocks, not fake information.

You can't magic science into existence and then use it to make decisions.

timthorn
0 replies
1d1h

They also count charities/non-profits as "companies" - it's unclear to me if they also include local government, but it would be helpful to see the results that for-profit organisations achieved broken out separately.

brightball
4 replies
1d

Counterpoint: When hiring people reasonably early out of school, they often just want the additional hours. I know of a business in my area that tried the 4 day work week and they ended up having to open on Fridays for half a day because people just wanted more hours (and money). Without it, the same people were just getting second jobs.

esafak
1 replies
20h15m

Give people the option to choose how much they want to work, and adjust the compensation.

brightball
0 replies
15h52m

That’s what ended up happening. People either wanted as much as possible or as little. 4 days didn’t really matter.

viscountchocula
0 replies
1d

Presumably the salaried people weren't clamoring for more hours?

dkjaudyeqooe
0 replies
1d

This isn't for people how are hourly, it's for salaried employees.

nly
3 replies
1d

Tech salaries aren't good enough in the UK to make this feasible for most of us.

CapeTheory
2 replies
1d

Once you get into the top tax band, the 20% cut in base pay only corresponds to an ~8% cut in take-home pay - a pretty good deal as far as I'm concerned. The problem is that employers who pay this much tend to be large US companies and therefore not well equipped to deal with requests for flexible working. Fortunately the law here means that such requests can't be dismissed out of hand, but unfortunately that doesn't mean HR is obligated to make such requests easy for managers to go along with.

IshKebab
1 replies
20h3m

Yes, though you could also put that money into your pension.

nly
0 replies
17h26m

Yep, 20% in to pension would be huge

ysofunny
2 replies
1d

I prefer a 6 hour workday 5 days a week

but I'll take a 4 day workweek (I assume 8 hours a day)

whycombagator
1 replies
23h41m

Why not both?

ysofunny
0 replies
20h2m

it's from 40 hours a week, down to 32, then to 30. doing both means a 24 hour work week...

heikkilevanto
2 replies
23h52m

Union meeting 2124: "Mr. President, do we really have to work every Wednesday?"

op00to
0 replies
23h16m

If we get so efficient that we can meet all our needs working once every 14 days, spending the rest of our time exercising and enjoying life, why is that bad?

Chinjut
0 replies
2h12m

Union meeting 1924: "Mr. President, do we really have to work every Saturday?"

denysonique
2 replies
1d2h

Every industry is different. Having the same 5-day, 4-day, x-day or x-hour workweek across all industries doesn't make any sense.

More diversity in this area could bring a worldwide increase of productivity, wellbeing and result in an economic boost.

toomuchtodo
0 replies
1d2h

4 day work weeks will be required to compete as structural demographics compresses the working age population [1] [2]. For example, over 1000 school districts in the US have moved to a 4 day week to retain teachers, as they have no other choice [3]. There is evidence it works in many industries (office work, manufacturing, law enforcement, government) [4]; it might not work everywhere, but it can work where it works.

There is no reason not to ratchet down the work week as productivity has increased, and most people work to live, not live to work (as indicated by the satisfaction indicators in these 4 day week trials).

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-29/japan-s-t... | https://archive.today/jXo6a

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/13/uk-worst-pe...

[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=us+school+districts+4+day+we...

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39261177 | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39254455 (citations)

dkjaudyeqooe
0 replies
1d

There already is diversity. My in-law works 12 hour days 7 days for a week in mining for instance.

Xenoamorphous
2 replies
20h9m

I think future generations will look back and find unfathomable that we spent the best part of 5 days a week (if not more) working. At least I hope so.

tr3ntg
0 replies
15h35m

Agreed. For all the talk about “AI can make you more efficient,” which it has, in my personal experience, there should be no excuse for worldwide standardization of 4 days over 5 days.

globular-toast
0 replies
9h31m

I'm starting to think most people have an instinct to work. People thought the dream was to become post-scarcity. But instead of taking steps towards that, people just keep working regardless and then find themselves with huge excesses of money and nothing better to spend it on than oversized cars etc.

pitahat
1 replies
20h5m

I think the biggest thing we often miss when we talk about the 4-day work week is that most employees would not mind doing condensed hours i.e. longer hours everyday but then work fewer days. It doesn't have to be straight cut to 32 hours etc

iknowstuff
0 replies
19h1m

Data on “most”?

m3kw9
1 replies
23h0m

They love it because while everyone works 5 days they work 4. Once everyone has 4 they will be back to square one just like everyone is now (5 days a week). Humans are like that, they compare what others have to see if they have it better. Where do you think we got the term, grass is always greener on the other side?

yCombLinks
0 replies
11h34m

3 days off is significantly different than 2. You get a day where you didn't work yesterday and you don't work tomorrow.

lamontcg
1 replies
1d1h

Newsflash: most people working 40 hour weeks aren't working the whole time and spend a lot of time surfing reddit and HN when they're not yapping about sports or their weekends with coworkers.

Sohcahtoa82
0 replies
22h57m

At a job I had a few years ago, 95% of my time was spent on reddit/HN.

There was corporate in-fighting over who would would be responsible for some work, and my team lost, so my team no longer had any work to do. My manager quit, but his manager didn't actually know what we did on a day-to-day basis so basically left us alone. He was extremely occupied with the work from another one of his teams, anyways.

It was actually kind of stressful. I was always waiting for the day that my acting manager would discover that we had no work to do and would eliminate the entire team. I ended up leaving and getting a job where I actually had important (to the company, anyways) work to do at a significantly higher salary.

ThrowawayTestr
1 replies
1d

I used to do 3 12 hour days and it was glorious.

switch007
0 replies
23h16m

Did you have to convince an employer you’d be productive for 12 hours?

Jedd
1 replies
18h40m

One important finding, researchers say, is that there is no one-size-fits-all recipe when it comes to the four-day workweek.

Didn't we already know this is the case with a five-day workweek?

Five days is such an arbitrary situation, obtained only through a LOT of effort by a LOT of people to reduce that down from a 'perfectly normal and reasonable' six-day workweek.

We're persistently lumbered by the inertia of pervasive systems we inherited, and the assumption that what we have is what we should have.

theendisney4
0 replies
14h38m

Haha, ik wanted 5 days but got only 3, it took me a long time to figure out why i wanted 5, it seemed so self evident. It was every bit as dumb as you make it out to be.

A coworker did eventually get 5 days, after 6 months he said, what have i done, My life is just work now.

I remember working 5, i made more money. It was just as easy to spend as it is now. Nothing changed.

spoonjim
0 replies
22h19m

4 day week is very stupid. You can only do a few hours of good programming a day and throwing away one of them is idiotic

renewiltord
0 replies
17h56m

It's the UK. No one works on Fridays anyway. Haha.

pythonguython
0 replies
23h2m

I work in contracting, so this could never work. At the end of the day, many Americans sell time. There’s no incentive for my organization to produce more in less time.

kypro
0 replies
20h7m

And here I am sad that no one will let me work weekends in IT.

kkfx
0 replies
22h52m

Unpopular opinion: 4-days workweeks is used as a scam to force people in the office instead of full-remote. That's is.

Since https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/ "productivity" in not a thing really interests companies, they are much more interesting in having an effective grip on their workers, with remote workers the sole grip is fair conditions and nice work environment. They do want to keep the geographical grip and various other small potatoes grip on workers. Here the popularity of shorter workweeks, of course "if you go in the office", meaning if you live nearby.

I can work 6 days a week, no issue, but if the job can be done from remote it MUST BE done from remote.

giuliomagnifico
0 replies
1d2h

They began it as a six-month experiment. But today, 54 of the companies still have the policy. Just over half have declared it permanent, according to researchers with the think tank Autonomy, who organized the trial along with the groups 4-Day Week Campaign and 4 Day Week Global.

PDF of the research: https://autonomy.work/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/making-it-s...

danielfoster
0 replies
18h26m

I was excited about this until I read that companies had introduced efficiencies such as “monk mondays” to get more done in less time. Couldn’t a company do this, keep a five-day work week, and see an increase in productivity?

booleandilemma
0 replies
19h14m

Why wouldn't they love it? They should try a 3-day workweek, they'll probably love that even more.

HermitX
0 replies
1d1h

In the movie The Matrix, should those people trapped in the cultivation tanks be considered as having seven days of rest a week?